“what was she like? she loved him, really loved him then, for an instant. this, this was easier. ”

“It is not in him to be loved like me: how can she love in him what he has not?”

“Love. It seemed impossible that she could love him, but she was so deep in him there was really nowhere to go but further in. So this is what love was. Uncontrollable. Consuming. But so irresistible you wanted to be consumed.”

“Maybe I'm deceiving myself. Perhaps I don't know him as well as I'd like to imagine. What does a person so willing to utterly remake himself hold inside his heart? Can I trust such a man? What motivates him?In an instant she knew, and she felt a bit of relief.Love. Love was what drove him.”

“It was as if she saw him in a whole new way, as if he had magically been transformed into a new person. Perhaps what she could really see, or wanted so very much to see, was how much he cared for her. Not that he wanted something from her, but that he wanted to see to it that she was happy, that she was taken care of, that that was what he truly wanted. And in that instant, it made her love him.”

“She didn't love him and he didn't love her; she was like an addiction, and what they were doing had a darkness to it, a weight.”